The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has made strong allegations against both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing them of colluding in the backdrop of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent protest near the Prime Minister’s residence regarding the NEET issue. Sanjay Singh, an AAP Member of Parliament, charged that the government allowed the protest to take place as a strategic move to shift focus away from the student-led demonstrations demanding accountability for the NEET paper leak. Singh argued that such actions detracted from the broader public campaign aimed at addressing these student concerns.
In a similar vein, Atishi, the Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, criticized the government’s handling of protests, contrasting the lenient treatment of Rahul Gandhi’s protest with the harsher restrictions imposed on student activists demonstrating near Parliament. She pointed out that while student protesters and activists often faced police action, Rahul Gandhi not only managed to protest near the Prime Minister’s residence but also received an expedited response from the authorities, highlighting a disparity in how different protests are managed.
The situation became more contentious when Union Minister Jitendra Singh engaged with Rahul Gandhi at the protest site, expressing the government’s readiness to discuss NEET-related issues in Parliament. Despite this apparent willingness for dialogue, the protest concluded with the detention of Rahul Gandhi and several other Congress Members of Parliament by the police. This sequence of events has further fueled the debate over the unequal treatment of protesters, as alleged by the AAP.
The unfolding events underscore rising tensions among opposition parties, particularly as AAP accuses the Congress of inadvertently aiding the BJP by not fully supporting the larger student movement. This accusation suggests a fracture within the opposition ranks, where instead of presenting a united front on student issues, the actions of the Congress are perceived by AAP as undermining the collective effort to hold the government accountable over the NEET controversy.